Successful companies can be formed out of the failure of a dream and a side project created for friends and family growing into much more. This is the story of the birth of PriceGrabber.com, a shopping comparison search company that grew from a side project into a half-billion dollar sale in about five years. Grabware was envisioned as a software distribution company providing on-demand distribution of software through store kiosks. A buyer would approach the terminal, choose a few shareware titles or full versions of the software, and an in-store fulfillment service would burn a CD and print a user…
Category Archives: Business
Mac small business dinner January 11 in San Francisco
I am organizing a dinner for Mac small business owners and developers on Wednesday, January 11, at Chaat Cafe in San Francisco starting at 7 p.m. I want to bring together the small businesses attending the conference for face-to-face discussion and sharing of ideas among other people who have probably used your software and read your blog but might have never met face-to-face. I enjoyed the lunch meeting during this year’s WWDC and want to keep the conversation flowing. Chaat Cafe is located at 320 3rd Street (corner of 3rd and Folsom) in downtown San Francisco, one block from…
Paid placements over broadband pipes
The latest of Om and Niall PodSessions is now available. This week Om and I talk about the emergence of paid placement or prioritization of services on networks run by broadband providers such as your cable or telephone company. Cable and phone operators currently prioritize the handling of data packets from their own services flowing across the network. A call placed using a carrier’s Internet telephony product will receive priority handling ahead of calls placed using competing services such as Skype or Vonage. The carriers are now in discussion with other businesses dependent on fast delivery of their content to…
Podcast with 37signals
Earlier today I had the opportunity to interview Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals for my podcast with Om Malik. We talked about scalability’s role in business planning, built-to-flip startup companies, and programming using the Ruby on Rails framework. Our interview with Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson is 29 minutes and 50 seconds in length and a 13.7 MB download. Om posted earlier this week about companies that don’t take scale into account when building a web service. David Heinemeier Hansson responded to Om with his own experiences building Basecamp and other hosted applications. We took the…
Kanoodle cookie bounty
Advertising network Kanoodle will now pay webmasters for planting a cookie on a visitor’s computer without ever showing an advertisement. Sites placing a cookie classifying a user’s browsing habits into one of 7,500 contextual ad categories. Publishers in the program will be paid 5% of the revenue earned when an advertisement served on the Kanoodle network is triggered by a cookie generated on the publisher’s site. Kanoodle advertisements are an integrated option for TypePad Pro users. Bloggers could profit from distributing cookies on their own personal weblogs for later monetization on a TypePad Pro site with advertising or other blogs…
Eric Schmidt’s rules of management
Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Berkeley professor Hal Varian wrote an article in the latest issue of Newsweek about Google’s approach to managing the knowledge worker. Google’s extensive perks program is their way of removing things that may get in the way of their employees. Schmidt admits Google’s problems of “techno-arrogance” and “the not invented here syndrome.” The company also needs to adjust to a workforce of varying ages and motivations as it looks towards long-term growth. One of our not-so-secret weapons is our ideas mailing list: a companywide suggestion box where people can post ideas ranging from parking procedures…
San Francisco Auto Show marketing highlights
Yesterday I attended the San Francisco auto show to geek out over the latest cars. A few companies stood out in their marketing efforts to connect their brands with passive customers. Chrysler had special photo zones around popular cars such as the Dodge Viper, a Chrysler 300 Dubs Edition with gull-wing doors, and the Chrysler Phaeton concept car. The company setup special floor mats as photo zones and attendees lined up to have their picture taken. Chrysler representatives handed special cards to everyone they photographed with a URL and access code to retrieve their digital photograph the next day. Subaru…
Brightcove receives $16.2 million Series B
Brightcove just closed a $16.2 million Series B funding round led by AOL. Other investors include IAC, Hearst, and Allen & Co. Barry Diller of IAC will join Brightcove’s board. Series A was led by Jim Breyer of Accel Partners and David Orfao of General Catalyst Partners. Brightcove was founded by Jeremy Allaire, formerly chief technical officer at Macromedia where he helped develop the Flash format. Brightcove makes heavy use of Flash throughout its site to deliver video direct to customers over the web for free, subscription, and individual purchases. Brightcove also signed a deal with AOL allowing publishers…
Napster UK advertisement
Napster UK has a sexy new commercial online to promote its music subscription service (NSFW). The commercial shows a 30 second peep show that abruptly ends as the stripper is about to remove her bra. The ad ends with “Leave you wanting more?” and links to a free trial subscription. Clever. A link to a free download for the commercial’s musical track would have been a perfect ending. Tags: advertising, napster, commercials…
Tis the season for recruiting
The holidays are upon us. Around the United States this week millions of employees will return home to their families and relatives and be greeted with typical questions about life and the pursuit of happiness. The conversation inevitably turns to work, and causes a self-examination fueled by the best wishes of friends and relatives. Are you happy? How’s your job working out? Are they treating you well? Do you think you will get a raise, bonus, or promotion this year? Have you heard about how John is doing at his job? The questions raised during the holiday season cause employees…